Naked Spirituality

A Life with God in 12 Simple Words

About the Book

“A rich, brilliant and important book: wonderfully readable and personal, filled with insight and wisdom, it invites us into practices that can transform our lives.” —Marcus J. Borg, author of Speaking Christian

“Brian McLaren is a bridge builder. In these simple yet profound spiritual practices he perfectly marries his evangelical heart and contemplative soul, and we are all richer for the union.” —Cynthia Bourgeault, author of Centering Prayer and The Wisdom Jesus

In the same way he revitalized our faith in A New Kind of Christianity, church leader Brian McLaren reinvigorates our approach to spiritual fulfillment in Naked Spirituality—by tearing down the old dogmatic practices that hamper our spiritual growth, and leading us toward the meaningful spiritual practices that can help transform our lives.

Book Description

Christianity is in crisis. Many sincere Christians feel their traditional Christian practices are in danger of becoming irrelevant, empty rituals. In his previous book A New Kind of Christianity, Brian D. McLaren offered new biblical models for how we understand the central ideas of a faith that provides hope for restoring and reinvigorating the power of the gospels to transform us and our communities.

In Naked Spirituality, McLaren takes his prophetic work a step further by confronting how the lack of a simple, doable, durable spirituality undermines the very transformation God is calling us to undergo. As a result, our religious structures become tools to maintain the status quo and not catalysts for personal and social change. McLaren presents a four-stage framework for understanding the spiritual life, and he unfolds spiritual practices appropriate to each stage. Each practice is rooted in a simple word: here, thanks, O, sorry, help, please, when, no, why, behold, yes, and silence. Naked Spirituality offers accessible, practical wisdom for living a truly spiritual life. Staying true to Jesus's core message while engaging faithfully with our postmodern world, McLaren presents a proven spiritual program for engaging in and sustaining a meaningful relationship with God.

Educator and Librarian Resources

Critical Praise

“A rich, brilliant and important book: wonderfully readable and personal, filled with insight and wisdom, it invites us into practices that can transform our lives.” —

“Brian McLaren is a bridge builder. In these simple yet profound spiritual practices he perfectly marries his evangelical heart and contemplative soul, and we are all richer for the union.” —

“McLaren’s trademark persuasiveness is put to good effect as he continues to shatter paradigms for spiritual seekers.” —

“Anyone wanting to conserve the spiritual spark in themselves will find this book a gentle and generous tract.” —

“These stories are honest and kind and good... they illustrated the life of a real and raw experience of God and the human responses we offer.... This guidebook to simple words for a not so simple spirituality is an incredible gift, a true asset to us, bread for the journey.” —

“McLaren both charts an arc of the spiritual life and suggests practices to nurture [it]. . . . McLaren deserves endless thanks for reminding us that estrangement and no do not represent a breakdown of the spiritual life. . . . Naked Spirituality is very astute.” —

HarperCollins Reader

When you purchase e-books from HarperCollins, you can read it on our HarperCollins Reader App that is available on your iPhone/iPad, Android or Kindle Fire.

We encourage you to use the HC Reader App since it supports our type of e-book files and you may have some trouble with a different reader app.

Instructions

Please make sure you have a HarperCollins Account. If you purchase/have purchased an e-book from HarperCollins, this is your account login and password. Otherwise, please click here to register.

Download the HC Reader App on iPhone/iPad, Android or Kindle Fire and sign in with your HarperCollins account (your username is an e-mail address). Please note that Kindle Fire users must edit their settings (Settings < Device) to allow installation of apps in order to download the HC Reader App. This App is not available in the Amazon App Store.